Friday, July 01, 2005

Abstract: Political economy models of growth and public service provision stress the incentives of the elite under high inequality to under-invest in the human capital of the majority. Other political economy models stress that ethnic divisions will lead to low public goods provision. This paper examines Pakistan as a case study of these two propositions. Pakistan has had respectable per capita growth over 1950-99, intensive involvement by donors and international agencies ($58 billion in foreign aid), and has a well-educated and high-achieving elite and Diaspora. Yet Pakistan systematically underperforms on most social and political indicators -- education, health, sanitation, fertility, gender equality, corruption, political instability and violence, and democracy -- for its level of income. It systematically under-performs on improvements in these indicators for its rate of GDP per capita growth over time. I call this pattern "growth without development." Large inequalities exist between men and women, between urban and rural areas, and between regions. The donor- and government-supported Social Action Program that sought to address these lags in the last 8 years has failed. This follows a long history of failed government and aid programs to address social lags. While foreign aid and government programs may have contributed to overall economic growth, they were an egregious failure at promoting social and institutional development under the circumstances of elite domination and ethnic division.

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The people of my country Pakistan are suffering at the hands of ill educated, self stylized Mullahs. Not realizing the predicaments, they are instead following the Mullahs blindfolded. The term Mullah borrowed from Persian is used for a learned, and scholarly man. Todays Mullahs are ....
What the heck ...
I have decided to become an E Mullah (electronic mullah)...to deliver sermons to the illwill Mullahs of my purists society.

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